This invention pertains to semiconductor memory cells and arrays, more particularly to electrically erasable programmable read only memories.
Erasable programmable read only memories (EPROMs) and electrically erasable programmable read only (EEPROMs) are well known in the art. These devices have the ability to store data in non-volatile fashion, while also being capable of being erased and rewritten as desired. EPROM devices are typically erased by exposing the integrated circuit device to ultraviolet radiation, while EEPROMs allow erasure to be performed electrically.
One form of EEPROM device includes a so-called xe2x80x9csplit-gatexe2x80x9d electrode, in which the control gate includes a first portion overlaying a floating gate and a second portion directly overlaying the channel. Such a split gate structure is described in a 5-Volt-Only Fast-Programmable Flash EEPROM Cell with a Double Polysilicon Split-Gate Structure by J. Van Houdt et al, Eleventh IEEE Non-Volatile Semiconductor Workshop, February 1991, in which charge is injected into the floating gate from the source side of the cell. U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,897 describes an EEPROM device which does not utilize a split-gate, but which also provides injection to the floating gate from the source side of the device.
As described in the above referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,897, memory cells are typically arranged in an array, as is well known in the art. One form of such an array utilizes buried diffusions, in which source and array regions are covered with a fairly thick layer of insulating material. This is shown for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,151,020; 4,151,021; 4,184,207; and 4,271,421. Such buried diffusion devices often utilize a virtual ground approach, in which columns connecting the sources of a first column of memory cells also serves to connect drains of an adjacent column of memory cells.
While many EEPROM devices utilize two layers of polycrystalline silicon, one for the formation of the floating gate, and the other for the formation of the control gate and possibly electrical interconnects, other EEPROM devices utilize three layers of polycrystalline silicon. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,766 provides a first polycrystalline silicon layer for the floating gate, a second polycrystalline silicon layer for the control gate, and a third polycrystalline silicon layer coupled through an erase window to a portion of the first polycrystalline silicon layer for use during erasure of the cell. U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,968 also uses a third layer of polycrystalline silicon to form an erase gate, while U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,090 forms an addressing gate electrode utilizing a third layer of polycrystalline silicon. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,561,004 and 4,803,529 also use three layers of polycrystalline silicon in their own specific configurations.
Japanese Patent Publication 61-181168 appears to utilize three layers of polycrystalline silicon to provide additional capacitive coupling to the floating gate. Japanese Patent Publication 63-265391 appears to pertain to a buried diffusion array, possibly utilizing virtual grounds.
European Patent Application 0373830 describes an EEPROM in which two polycrystalline silicon layers are used, with the second layer of polycrystalline silicon having two pieces, one of which provides the erase function, and one of which provides the steering function.
xe2x80x9cA New Flash-Erase EEPROM Cell With a Sidewall Select-Gate on its Source Sidexe2x80x9d by K. Naruke et al. IEDM-89-603 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,794,565 describe an EEPROM utilizing a side wall select gate located on the source side of the field effect transistor.
xe2x80x9cEPROM Cell With High Gate Injection Efficiencyxe2x80x9d by M. Kamiya et al. IEDM 82-741, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,656 describe an EEPROM device in which a reduced programming voltage is provided by having a highly doped channel region under the select gate, and the channel region under the floating gate being either lightly doped or doped to the opposite conductivity type, thereby providing a significant surface potential gap at the transition location of the channel.
In recent years there has been significant interest in producing high capacity FLASH memory devices which use split-gate, source-side hot electron programming, in place of the more conventional drain-side channel hot electron (CHE) mechanism.
The reasons for this include its inherently lower write power requirement ({fraction (1/10)}th that of CHE or less), facilitating low voltage operation and higher write speeds via increased parallelism. In addition, the split gate structure is not susceptible to xe2x80x9covererasexe2x80x9d related problems (a problem for single gate FLASH memories such as ETOX), and does not experience programming difficulty due to strong overerase, which can hinder programming after an erasure operation in split-gate CHE programming devices.
In view of these benefits, SanDisk Corporation has patented FLASH memory cell and array variants which use source side injection integrated with SanDisk""s proprietary thick oxide, poly-to-poly erase tunneling technology, to make a highly scalable, reliable, low power programming cell (D. C. Guterman, G. Samachiasa, Y. Fong and E. Harari, U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,421).
The concept of a multi-bit storage non-volatile cell using a split gate structure was described by G. S. Alberts and H. N. Kotecha (Multi-bit storage FET EAROM cell, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 24 No. 7A, p. 3311, December 1981). They describe a two-poly, three transistor element-in-series cell, in which the center transistor""s channel is controlled directly by the poly2 control gate (which also serves as the cell select gate), and each of the two end transistor channels are controlled by corresponding poly1 floating gates, which in turn are capacitively coupled to the control gate, thereby realizing a plurality of bits in the one physical cell structure.
Recently, at the 1994 IEDM, Bright Microelectronics along with Hyundai presented a similar dual-bit split-gate cell, integrated into a contactless, virtual ground array, and using source side injection programming (Y. Y. Ma and K. Chang, U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,439xe2x80x94referred to henceforth as the Ma approach). One structural difference here from the IBM approach is their separation of the capacitively coupling control gates, which are formed in poly2, and the select gate, which is formed in poly3.
In the Ma approach, they use xe2x80x9cconventionalxe2x80x9d negative control gate driven tunneling through an ultra-thin poly1 gate oxide (about 100 xc3x85 or less). This erase approach poses some serious limitations. Erase of one of the two storage transistors uses floating gate to drain tunneling through the ultra-thin oxide, accomplished by biasing the drain to 7 v and corresponding control gate to xe2x88x9210 v. Because both of these lines run perpendicular to the select gate, this forces a block of cells which are to be simultaneously erased (e.g. a sector) to be bit line oriented, as opposed to the more conventional word line (select gate) oriented block; i.e. its sector must be column organized and thus it cannot be row organized. (For example, a sector could be two columns of floating gates straddling a bit line/diffusion, including the right hand floating gates of the left side cells"" floating gate pair plus the left hand floating gates of the right side cells.) This leads to the following disadvantages in the Ma implementation:
(1) Limited to column sector architecture; i.e. cannot readily support the higher read performance row oriented sector architecture. (Since here, within a sector, both erase anode and corresponding control gates run perpendicular to row line direction, this precludes the massively parallel xe2x80x9cchunkxe2x80x9d implementation of the row oriented sector, which can simultaneously access large numbers of cells within that sector).
(2) Requires ultra-thin, approximately 100 xc3x85, tunneling oxide, imposing following limitations:
Scaling limitation associated with pushing the limits of usable oxide thicknesses, plus the additional area needs associated with maintaining adequate coupling requirements, which must combat the inherently high capacitance per unit area of such a thin oxide;
A myriad of potential retention/reliability problems inherent to using ultra-thin oxide, combined with the parasitic band-to-band tunneling/hole injection associated with the high substrate fields adjacent to the diffusion anode; and
Negative gate bias requirements on control gate, to limit band-to-band injection problems, impose process and circuit complexity, plus potentially more layout area requirement.
In accordance with the teachings of this invention, novel memory cells are described utilizing source-side injection. Source-side injection allows programming utilizing very small programming currents. If desired, in accordance with the teachings of this invention, to-be-programmed cells along a column are programmed simultaneously which, due to the small programming current required for each cell, does not require an unacceptably large programming current for any given programming operation. In one embodiment of this invention, the memory arrays are organized in sectors with each sector being formed of a single column or a group of columns having their control gates connected in common. In one embodiment, a high speed shift register is used in place of a row decoder in order to serially shift in the data for the word lines, with all of the data for each word line of a sector being contained in the shift register on completion of its serial loading. In one embodiment, additional speed is achieved by utilizing a parallel loaded buffer register which receives data in parallel from the high speed shift register and holds that data during the write operation, allowing the shift register to receive serial loaded data during the write operation for use in a subsequent write operation. In one embodiment, a verification is performed in parallel on all to-be-programmed cells in a column and the bit line current monitored. If all of the to-be-programmed cells have been properly programmed, the bit line current will be substantially zero. If bit line current is detected, another write operation is performed on all cells of the sector, and another verify operation is performed. This write/verify procedure is repeated until verification is successful, as detected by substantially zero bit line current.
Among the objectives of the novel cells constructed in accordance with this invention are avoidance of programming limitations such as:
1. High Channel Currents (Power) required for Programming.
2. High Drain Voltage Requirements, which increase with increased levels of erasure.
3. Loss of Read Performance associated with an increase in Programming Efficiency via Heavy Channel doping.
4. Program Wearout Associated with Maintaining a High Drain Bias on Cells exposed to this bias, including both those cells targeted for programming and those cells not targeted but still exposed to the voltage.
In an alternative embodiment of this invention, a multi-bit memory cell is taught utilizing a 3-poly, 3 transistor element-in-series cell in which the center transistor""s channel is controlled directly by the poly 3 control gate (which serves as both a cell select gate and erase anode) and each of the two end transistor channels are controlled by corresponding poly1 floating gates, which in turn are capacitively coupled to the poly 2 control or steering gates, thereby realizing a plurality of bits in the one physical cell structure.
The multi-bit cell contains two bits per unit memory cell, coming from two floating gate portions, each having their own control gate (which, in the virtual ground array, runs parallel to the bits lines), and sharing one select gate, placed physically between them (which, in the virtual ground array, runs perpendicular to the bit lines). The diffusion BN+ source/drains straddle the two floating gates, on their opposite facing channel edges to those adjacent the select gate/transfer channel.
Unlike a single floating gate cell, because here the two floating channels lie in a series configuration, the programmed threshold voltage level of each floating gate must be limited in its upper value in order to be readable (similarly to the Toshiba NAND cell). In this way, either floating gate channel can be unconditionally turned on (i.e. independent of its stored state) when appropriate bias is applied to its corresponding control gate, when reading the state of the other floating gate.